The world is in a delicate equilibrium; maintain that balance, and it will grant you its bounty.
Druathos is the god of Nature, of the wild things that mortals rarely see, of forests and grasslands, of swamps and deserts, of mountains and seas. But they are also the god of shepherds and farmers, of gardeners and herbalists, of hunters and timber-cutters. They are the god of Balance, of the ongoing cycle of life and death and rebirth, of the delicate systems that connect mortals to each other and the natural world. Those who disrupt this balance will earn the Green God’s ire, but those who protect it, tend to it, repair it when it becomes unbalanced, will earn Druathos’ favor.
Nature unchecked will destroy the mortal world; Ferukhar proved how insidious and terrible the ideal of nature’s primacy could be. But, at the same time, mortal greed left unchecked will cause them to devour the world like locusts, harming themselves in the process. Druathos teaches that there must be a balance in all things, and that deviations from that balance must be understood, controlled, or rectified before they can disrupt the system they are a part of.
Perdruna, the Stormherald, patron Saint of Destruction and Renewal, who personifies nature’s wrath and the new beginnings that follow in its wake.
Anselt, the Gardener, patron Saint of Agriculture and Seasons, who watches over the mortals who tend to the land, helping them reap nature’s bounty while maintaining the sacred balance between the mortal and natural worlds.
Druanna, the Everblooming, patron Saint of Healing and Transformation, who embodies the life and rejuvenation that are at the heart of the natural world and guides those mortals who seek to turn the magic of nature to new uses via alchemy and medicine.
Selenir, the Silver Lady, patron Saint of Exploration, Navigation, and Sailors, who acts as a guiding star to those who are lost and who must make their way through the wilderness.
Thendros, the Shepherd, patron Saint of Death and Decay, who watches over the souls of the dead and safeguards the cycle of life and death.
The virtues of the Druathan faith lie in doing the following as best you are able: understand your role in the cycle of nature and how that cycle flows around you, seek to live in harmony with the world and your fellow travelers through it, and be ruthless in bringing an end to anything that would destroy the balance of the natural world. A true follower of Druathos is someone who can grasp the vast interconnected web of life that underlies the natural world, and uses that knowledge to both protect nature from anything that would harm it and help the mortal folk around them find ways of sustainably benefitting from nature’s bounty.
To maintain the flow of natural cycles and uphold the healthy boundaries between civilization and nature, one must first have a degree of understanding of **the natural world. If you would follow Druathos, learn all you can about nature, its wonders, and how it works. Seek the tutelage of those who have worked with nature all their lives — gardeners, woodsmen, farmers, shepherds, hunters, and more — so that you might learn the ways in which nature responds to mortal intervention, and how best to heal the natural world when it is wounded. Learn to see the connections between each living thing around you, including yourself and the other mortals of the world, so that when you act on Druathos’ behalf you know what is necessary to achieve your purpose, and won’t accidentally make the situation worse.
To follow Druathos is to walk through the wilds as if they were your home and to act as an emissary between the worlds of mortals and of nature — and to do so you must find harmony with both. Use your understanding of nature and of mortal folk alike to maintain the balance between the two worlds, however you are able. Build communities and traditions that value and seek to preserve the gifts of nature. Honor the Spirits of nature and aid in maintaining the health of the wilds. Teach those who seek to learn of nature’s wonders. Accept those who are different, and aid them in finding their own place within the cycles of the world. Most importantly, help one another, as Druathos aided their first mortal followers, with no expectation of recompense and only the hope that a small seed of kindness might grow into something greater in time.
That which threatens the balance of the world must be ripped out, root and stem. If you would follow Druathos, then you must be willing to do what is necessary to protect the wilds, no matter how bloody or painful it might be. Nature is neither merciful nor soft-hearted, and to follow the Green God is to accept that violence is sometimes necessary, that blood must sometimes be shed to ensure that the corruption is pruned before it can spread. Be resolute, and ferocious, and as brutally effective as you must, to ensure that whatever threatens the balance of the world is ended as swiftly as it can be.
The sins of the Druathan faith are thus: to let greed cause you to take without giving back in equal measure, to act thoughtlessly and without care to the destructive consequences of your actions, and to cause unnecessary torment.
Mortal greed would render the world a barren wasteland, if left unchecked, ripping all that might be of value from nature until there is nothing left. Druathos despises those who would take and take without care to the damage they cause, without giving back or making an effort to ensure that what they take might grow back in time. Farmers who harvest year after year without taking care of their soil; hunters who kill all the game in a forest and then move on to the next; loggers who cut down the forest itself without planting a single tree; these commit a sin against nature and Druathos themself, and the followers of the Green God are always on the lookout for such folk and the damage they leave behind. Whenever you take from nature, always do so in a measured way and find some means of giving back, so that in a generation the gifts of the natural world will still be there for whoever comes after you.
Even with the best of intents simple carelessness can bring about ruin, and so Druathos tasks their followers with always guarding against fools and the willfully blind. Miners who spill tailings into the river without thinking of the fish; shepherds who kill all the wolves in an area to protect their flock, and in the process destabilize the delicate balance of life; a city that pumps its effluent into the nearby river without treating it; even when mortals do not deliberately seek to harm the wilds, they can still become a blight upon the world by their very presence. Work with the others around you to put an end to these blights, and do what you can to mend the damage they cause. Do not let the world become unbalanced through short-sightedness and sloth, lest the blight grow and devour the mortal world as well.
Nature is often cold and callous, but cruelty is something that Druathos will not tolerate in their followers. They do not demand their followers refrain from violence or harming others, but they have a hatred of folk who take pleasure from inflicting suffering on others. Purposeful pain and delighted cruelty were a frequent refrain in ‣ during the time before Druathos rose to godhood, and they have no tolerance for seeing those vile traits appear again within their flock. If someone or something must be ended, do it as quickly and painlessly as possible, without prolonging their suffering.
Most depictions of Druathos show them as a humanoid tree, towering over the mortals around them. Some depictions show them as male, with a beard of moss and a grandfatherly expression on his face; others show them as female, with a trailing mass of branches sprouting from her head in place of hair and a kind and loving smile; still others show them without any gender at all, or with a blend of gender traits that give them an androgynous appearance. When they appear before mortals they always do so as an androgynous Satyr or Vaettrkin, their horns or antlers fashioned of living tree branches; it’s said that you can tell what mood Druathos is in based on what season the plants appear to be in; blooming spring leaves and flowers is a sign that they’re pleased, while the bare branches of winter imply that they are very upset about something.
Druathos is notoriously unable to really understand mortals. Despite how fond they are of their followers, they have trouble grasping why mortals do things beyond the basic needs of survival. Pride, envy, ambition, and more; all of those ineffably mortal feelings and motivations are alien to Druathos’ experience. This gives them the air of a kindly aunt or uncle, who is happy to listen to their followers’ problems but is never entirely certain what you’re talking about, and is very reticent in what advice or aid they’re willing to offer unless it focuses on matters they understand.
When a follower does have a problem that touches on Druathos’ domain, however, they become much more interested and willing to offer advice and assistance. If a druid makes a prayer asking for aide in repairing a blighted wilderness, understanding what is going wrong with an ailing ecosystem, or healing a fallen warrior, Druathos knows what is required and is all too happy to offer their aid.
Like all of the Gods, Druathos is limited in how they can speak with their followers. Their preferred mode of communication is via natural phenomena, which their followers collectively call Green Omens: flocks of birds or swarms of insects forming specific shapes, fallen leaves blowing past on an unexpected gust of wind, the scent of rain on a cloudless day, etc. Translating these omens is a difficult task for those who are not deeply attuned to nature, but experienced druids can often at least tell “yes” from “no,” or detect the anger in their deity’s “voice” when nature is under threat. In most cases druids offer prayers to Druathos with no expectation of a reply, simply communing with their god, and instead turn to the five Druathan Saints or their many Heralds if they need an answer more specific than an omen.
Druathos’ goals almost all center around keeping the natural world safe from mortals, and mortals in turn safe from nature. They seek to keep the two in balance as much as possible, attempting to guide mortals towards sustainable behavior and keep the most dangerous creatures of the wilderness from straying beyond their territories. Their goals with regard to mortals specifically are to help them find ways to flourish without devouring the natural world in the process. They understand that this is a never-ending struggle, that with every generation mortals may forget the lessons that Druathos teaches, but nonetheless they believe it to be a burden well worth bearing, not least because they love sharing the joy and wonders of nature with their followers.
The only major priority Druathos has outside of being nature’s warden is their focus on the sanctity of life and death. They despise the undead in general and necromancers in particular, and charge their followers with hunting down any such who would give unnatural life to that which should remain dead.
Prayers to Druathos generally take one of two forms: speaking to nature and birchbark scrolls.
Speaking to nature is exactly what it sounds like: talking or singing to the wilds, whether a flock of birds on your balcony, a tree in a city park, a thriving meadow out on the edge of a forest, the open ocean, and more. Speak your words to Druathos, and they will hear you. Watch for the omens of their reply, and open your soul to the wilds as much as you are able. Druathos does not reply very often to this form of prayer, but they always listen.
A “birchbark scroll” is a generic term used to describe more serious prayers, made in the form of a message or request written on bark or wood and then thrown into a fire to be consumed. Birch bark is the traditional material used, but any form of wood, bark, or plant fiber is an acceptable alternative. Birchbark prayers are ones that have significant thought put behind them, and are only made when the person making them believes that the contents of the scroll must either be formally brought to the attention of Druathos and their Saints or requires some sort of response from the Green God and their servants. Many rituals performed by Druathan Mystics involve some form of birchbark scroll being burned, when such prayers are possible.
The equinoxes and solstices are holy days in the Druathan faith, representing as they do the turning of the seasons and the continuation of one of the greatest cycles in nature. Many nations have some form of holiday on or around these days, and the Druathan faith tends to build their rituals around these celebrations.
Burials are also holy to Druathos, as they represent the returning of a body to the earth or sky and the continuation of the cycle of life and death. Druathan Mystics are generally not as concerned with the other ceremonies surrounding death, but in most cultures they are an integral part of funeral customs in some form or fashion.
The duties of Druathan clergy revolve around nature, agriculture, and funeral rites. Druathan mystics, often referred to as “druids,” frequently find that their duties are shaped by the environment and communities that they are located in. Those in an urban area, for example, often tend to find themselves dealing with pest control, park maintenance, veterinary practice, and a lot of funerals. Those in more rural agricultural areas, on the other hand, tend to have their hands full ensuring that the crops and livestock are healthy and that no farmers are accidentally causing harm to the surrounding wilderness, as well as doing the occasional funeral rites. Druids on the far outskirts of civilization, or who dwell or travel within the wilderness, tend to focus on curing whatever corruption they encounter out there and ensuring that the boundary between civilized lands and wilderness remains intact.
Druathan ceremonies tend to be quiet, almost meditative affairs, as a druid guides other followers of the Green God in communing with nature. Most are conducted out in nature, or as close to it as the surrounding region can offer; urban druids almost exclusively conduct their sermons in local parks, for example. Often these sermons feature lessons, taught by experienced practitioners of various professions that deal with plants, animals, and the wilderness, who share their knowledge and wisdom with the rest of the congregation. When held during festivals, Druathan ceremonies tend to blend into the festivities, especially in agricultural regions. Only rarely do Druathan sermons become loud and strident, usually when something has harmed the environment nearby and the local druids take it upon themselves to remonstrate with the community and explain exactly why that is unacceptable.
Much of Druathan lore is passed down as traditional wisdom, tricks and habits and lore developed over the centuries to help mortals navigate and understand the wild places around them and the cycles and behavior of the natural world, passed down from one generation to the next. The Druathan faith treasures these old nuggets of wisdom, and places great value on those who have lived long enough to have accumulated a great wealth of natural lore. There is considerable emphasis placed within druidic circles on keeping this lore alive and ensuring that it is passed on to the next generation, and anything that would go against the wisdom passed down from generations past is looked at with considerable skepticism by most Druathan faithful.
One of the quiet joys of the Druathan faith is the appreciation of the beauty of nature. Whether it happens in the contemplation of a flower, a morning spent in a meadow watching the sunrise, or exploring to see what lies beyond the horizon, all Druathan faithful are reminded to take the time to treasure the wonders of the natural world, no matter how small or ephemeral they might be. Some druids have devoted their lives to exploring nature in greater and greater detail, rivaling the followers of Madina in how passionately they delve into the secrets of the world as they constantly seek to expand how well they understand the everyday miracles of a seed, a sunrise, and more.
Many of the spells and rituals taught by Druathos involve some form of healing, and one of Druathos’ Saints, Druanna, is the Saint of Medicine and Transformation. Alethos has claimed the title of “God of Healing” in the minds of mortals, but Druathos comes in a close second. Where Alethos’ priests use their magics to instantly restore a body or limb to its undamaged state, Druathos’ teachings lean more heavily on using magic and medicine to assist the natural healing process, infusing life energies into the patient and guiding the body in using them to heal itself. To fix a broken bone, an Alethian Mystic would simply pray over the limb and use a powerful pulse of magic to instantly restore it to working condition, while a Druathan Mystic would first set it and then cast a Restoration spell to vastly enhance the patient’s natural healing. The two approaches cause considerable (mostly friendly) debate between the two faiths, but the fact remains that Alethian priests are more flexible in what their magics can address, while druids tend to be more likely to dabble in medicine and herbal remedies and are thus better able to deal with injuries or illnesses that magic can’t immediately fix.
Necromancy is abhorrent to the Druathan faith, but nonetheless there is a strain of necromancy through many of their rituals and practices. Specifically, the Druathan mysteries surrounding death allow Druathan mystics to command the souls of the dead, but only in ways that accord with Druathos’ teachings surrounding the sanctity of life and death. The Deathly Peal Of The Shepherd’s Bell ritual is a rarity upon the battlefield, but those who face large numbers of demons or undead have found it to be a devastating weapon against those foes. The Barbed Gate Of Thendros ritual is more common, and is used by Druathan Mystics to ask questions of the departed to solve any mysteries they left behind, as well as to allow grieving friends and relatives to come to some form of closure. However, the Barbed Gate is never used frivolously by the Druathan faithful, for it is not a gentle thing to wrest a soul away from its journey to the afterlife, no matter how short and temporary the diversion is.
When violence is called for by the Druathan faith, druids issue the Verdant Call, summoning up those who would aid them in defending the cycles of nature. This is the dark side of the faith, the grim willingness to shed blood to restore balance to the world. When the Call goes out, warriors don their green-wood masks, mystics pick up their rods and staves, and they all head off to deal with whoever or whatever the threat is. Frequently the targets of the Call are monsters, beasts, or wild Spirits that have strayed beyond the boundaries of the wilderness where they belong; other common targets are undead, which are hated by all the faithful of Druathos.
Sometimes, though, the targets of the Call are mortals who have repeatedly and unrepentantly violated Druathos’ teachings against Greed and Blight. When this happens, there is usually quite a bit of build-up of anger within the Druathan community towards the target before a Call is put out, with the local authorities informed that if they don’t deal with the problem, then the Druathans will. Few cases of environmental damage are allowed to grow to such an explosive degree of severity, but when they do the followers of Druathos ensure that their endings are memorably bloody and final.
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Druathos was originally a great and solitary tree Spirit, deep within the green hell of ‣‘s forested expanse. They became home to a tribe of small and darkling fae, though, and over time grew fond of them, until eventually one of the horrors wandering Ferus’ wilderness slaughtered and ate them. Druathos grieved the loss of their little neighbors, their heart burning with hatred for Ferukhar and the monsters it had spawned who had taken Druathos’ friends from them. When the Godswar broke out soon afterwards, they struck, sinking their roots deep into the bleeding husk of Ferukhar, ripping the divinity from their former master and setting out to create a more balanced wilderness, where mortals and nature would not be constantly at one another's throats.
Druathos’ realm is known as the Elysian Fields, a beautiful realm of nature unblemished by the corruption of mortal greed or Old God malice, a vast expanse of forest, grassland, and seas, wild and beautiful and lush.